Apple's new iOS 7 appears to step on the toes of a variety of third party developers by incorporating their apps' functionality directly into the platform.

Attention App Store developers: Apple isn't afraid to extend new versions of iOS in directions that may overlap your own goals.

After thirty years of carefully avoiding most direct competition with its third party developers' apps, the new iOS 7 appears to ready to bundle useful app functionality directly into the platform whenever it makes sense.

Apps now in the iOS

Some of the most prominent examples: the new iTunes Radio (shown below) takes on a market formerly left to third party apps such as Pandora, leveraging the ubiquity of iTunes and integrating the service with iTunes Match.

The new Camera offers a lot of feature overlap with Instagram, making it a natural way for iOS users to capture photos (including Instagram-like square pictures), apply filters, and share with various services.

Additionally, Photos expands support for Photo Stream to include both photo and video sharing, including shared, collaborative albums. That's a 'killer app' feature that drives much of current interest in Facebook.

The new audio FaceTime not only takes on voice chat apps like Skype, but also brings Apple into increased competition with mobile carriers and the practice of billing users per minute to use old fashioned telephony networks rather than just providing raw data service.

The new Control Center even incorporates a rapidly accessible "flashlight" for activating an iPhone's LED, virtually erasing the demand for such dedicated flashlight apps.

The new Weather widget also more directly encroaches upon the market for third party weather apps.

As several readers have noted, Apple's new iCloud synched Keychain for passwords and other secure data integrate the features of third party apps such as 1Password and LastPass on both iOS and OS X.

Platform vs Apps

These certainly aren't the first occasions Apple's direction has steamrolled or obsolesced third party software. Last year's iOS 6 very clearly cut Google out of the picture in Maps, but Google started that competitive game (a game Apple is extending with the new Siri's now default use of Microsoft's Bing to look up information on the web).

And while Apple has also competed against Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Office apps with its own Safari and iWork apps, few could be much concerned about competition between giants. However, when Apple begins stepping on the work of small developers, there's often more populist concern for the little guy.

In the early development of Mac OS X, Apple first outraged minor app developer Karelia when it debuted a new version of its Sherlock search tool in 2001 that effectively killed the developer's existing Watson (below).

In 2003, Apple unveiled its web-based Dashboard widget layer that similarly sidelined Konfabulator (below). And a variety of core bundled OS X apps have erased much of the potential market for third party email, PDF, music, chat and other software.

On iOS, Apple had initially seemed to be content working on the platform for third parties to use. This sits in marked contrast to other mobile platforms such as Google's Android, which offered its own GPS turn-based directions app since 2009, for example.

Microsoft's Windows Phone similarly directs more attention to its own features rather than showcasing third party apps, in part because its so difficult to launch a new platform and magically collect a vast collection of third party titles for it.

That's not entirely new, given the appearance of features like GameCenter (which destroyed OpenFeint) or even Apple's own expansion of Maps in iOS 6 that, like Google Maps on Android, began directly competing against third party GPS and directions apps last year.

But developers working on features that are clearly in the path of Apple's future strategic directions should take note: the company isn't afraid to delight its own users at the expense of smaller, slower moving businesses in its way.

Every utility app developer had this issue even in the days of Windows 95. Microsoft famously included disk defragmentation utility while Norton utilities was one of the top selling applications for Windows.

I think the iCloud Keychain is going to kill a few of password vault apps.

That new control Center is so incredibly useful. Screen brightness, flashlight, it looks like you can even jump right into calculator.

As for them stepping on third parties, well that sucks. There's a conflict between the integrated ease of use and not stepping on the little guy that probably won't ever be fully resolved. Pandora's gotta be really mad right now, though, and I like Pandora, but iRadio looks great and makes a lot of sense with its integrated purchasing.

After thirty years of carefully avoiding most direct competition with its third party developers' apps, the new iOS 7 appears to ready to bundle useful app functionality directly into the platform whenever it makes sense.

In other words, if something makes sense to do, then it should be done. This type of revolutionary and innovative thinking seems so obvious once someone has voiced it. Now everyone will be wondering why they didn't think of it first.

Precisely. Like the much hyperventilated Apple Maps. Hell, one set of clicks and there was an icon on my Homescreen that said "Google Maps" just like before.... Or could have if I'd wanted to be tracked in my every move by anyone other than those handsome and clever (and well dressed I'm sure!) people at NSA....

Panic in Dashlane HQ. I am in the middle of deploying Dashlane across all my devices. That has just been stalled by the iCloud Keychain announcement. I feel bad for the developers of apps that are getting steamrolled but hey that's the way the ball bounces in the world of apps.

If iRadio is anything like Pandora then it's a pretty good guarantee I won't be using it. Pandora has never worked well for me & always seems to start off with crappy songs that really aren't that close to what I really wanted to listen to. Frankly I prefer spotify as it lets me simple play exactly what I want to listen to & nothing more or less. I also don't use Genius because I find it to be anything but genius.

As for small time utilities like flashlight, the app store is full of those sorts of things & most of the developers that created them have lots of other utility apps out there that do far more functional things so I doubt it's much sweat off their back. Apple is in the business of making their customers happy, and developers have to be in it for the same thing. If Apple wasn't innovating & moving forward then the precious platform these developers need to make money would stop growing & dwindle. If you're sticking all your eggs in the basket of something like a flashlight app quite frankly you're a fool, that ship was destined to sail at some point.

If iRadio is anything like Pandora then it's a pretty good guarantee I won't be using it. Pandora has never worked well for me & always seems to start off with crappy songs that really aren't that close to what I really wanted to listen to. Frankly I prefer spotify as it lets me simple play exactly what I want to listen to & nothing more or less. I also don't use Genius because I find it to be anything but genius.

As for small time utilities like flashlight, the app store is full of those sorts of things & most of the developers that created them have lots of other utility apps out there that do far more functional things so I doubt it's much sweat off their back. Apple is in the business of making their customers happy, and developers have to be in it for the same thing. If Apple wasn't innovating & moving forward then the precious platform these developers need to make money would stop growing & dwindle. If you're sticking all your eggs in the basket of something like a flashlight app quite frankly you're a fool, that ship was destined to sail at some point.

Pandora has something like 200 million users, so somebody, myself included, is using it. I like being given suggestions for new music, and have never cared for Spotify. Moreover, on Pandora you can lusten to comedy and all kinds of stuff. With that said, Apple's genius algorithm is considered one of the best. It probably will kill Pandora.

I don't think it's wrong that Apple is competing as long people can choose what app to use. To be honest though, I'll be switching to the integrated Apple apps.
Does anyone else notice that with shared photo streams that people can comment on, Apple has pretty much built a stealth social network?

Unless I am mistaken, much more importantly Apple has killed most of the legitimate reasons to jailbreak (other than choice simply for the sake of choice). Apple has taken most of the best jailbreak apps and incorporated the functionality into iOS 7.

Unless I am mistaken, much more importantly Apple has killed most of the legitimate reasons to jailbreak (other than choice simply for the sake of choice). Apple has taken most of the best jailbreak apps and incorporated the functionality into iOS 7.

It certainly has in my case - SBSettings / Activator for quick access to bluetooth (including from the lock screen, got to love that "double tap the clock" action ) and wifi toggling are the only reason my iPhone 5 is still running jailbroken 6.1.2

So far I'm impressed with the overall design changes and new features but some of those new app icons could take some getting used to... It will be interesting to see what else they are holding back for the 5S...

I tried the shared photo stream a few months back but was very disappointed to find that the people I shared my photo stream with couldn't add photos to it. With this feature now added, it's definitely going to be so much more useful and fun.

Half of Pandora is the apps ability to choose music you like. I've tried other similar apps and they are so far wrong it's unbelievable.

Someone who uses Pandora would be more likely to stay with Pandora. New users are more likely to use built in stuff.

I've used Pandora on and off for the last 2 years or so and it drives me nuts when they play songs on stations they have no business being on. I even tried tweaking the stations I created by providing lots of detail as far as what songs and bands should be included, but it still insisted on including songs that just didn't fit. And it was always the same bs excuse that the songs shared some common generic qualities. However, Tom Petty doesn't fit with The Cure no matter how much their music genome project might insist that it does.

There's no rule against lying, nor should there be, as lies of omission are common and understandable. There's no rule against hoaxes, though there should be, but I wouldn't say he's trying to perpetrate one anyway.

I noticed that as I was reading the iOS 7 highlights ... lots of third-party apps getting stepped on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nagromme

Of course, if they own necessary IP, Apple better buy it! (As they have often done.)

That's true, but I imagine a lot of independent developers don't have the time or money to be filing patent applications on their work. You might say that's their problem, but in boasting about the number of apps available on this platform, Apple must realize how many are created by independent, part-time, self-funded developers.

Even apps that don't have patentable ideas can still get a first-to-market advantage, which gets wiped out by Apple's preinstalled advantage. Apple could keep the playing field more level by distributing its apps as optional downloads, with the same installation process as third-party apps, rather than adding them automatically to every device that performs an iOS upgrade.

I have eight apps in the App Store and while most are too niche-oriented for Apple to encroach on, this danger along with a few other problems with the App Store policies have led me to start branching out to other platforms to protect my investment. People regularly tell me they bought an iOS device just so they could use one of my apps, so Apple does lose revenue by making developers feel insecure enough to diversify to other platforms.